


memories (real or not real?)

by hurricaneharmony



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 22:19:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1664561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hurricaneharmony/pseuds/hurricaneharmony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the bad days, there were always good memories that Emma would recall. The memories that made her heart fill with love while Henry was at a sleepover and she was so alone and crying on the couch, when the older mothers shot her withering glances as she picked Henry up for school, when she’d wake up from a dream about Henry’s father.<br/>These were the memories that would put her back together again when she fell apart.</p><p> </p><p>But they're lies, all of them. All of the good days, the good moments, all of that <i>love.</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>A Captain Swan drabble from forever ago, so bear with me when the timeline isn't with recent events. In which Emma learns that new memories can be made, as well as dreams.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	memories (real or not real?)

**Author's Note:**

> This was written forever ago- around Quiet Minds, 3x15, so I apologize that it doesn't include any recent events or development.
> 
> Please comment, kudos, anything- I'd so love feedback! Talk to me on colourfulmoniker-hook.tumblr.com
> 
>  
> 
> Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Once Upon A Time or any mentioned characters. (Sigh.)

_“Mommy!”_

_He’s seven years old and beaming as he runs toward her with outstretched arms and a handful of flapping papers, his oversized backpack thumping against his little body with each step. He throws his arms around her neck as she bends down to tuck him into her chest because it’s the first day of school and she’s_ missed _him being home with her._

_“I wrote you a story!” He grins, all crooked teeth with gaps between, and he takes her hand to drag her home as he babbles about Emma Swan, the magical princess, her son Henry, and their adventures in Neverland. She laughs and presses a kiss to the top of his head, squeezing him into her side as they walk._

_  
_

_Henry’s three months old, and it’s two in the morning as she bounces on the balls of her feet, trying to lull his squirming, screaming form to sleep. She’s tried everything- fed him herself, then when that failed she tried the formula, she’s swaddled him and changed his diaper and he’s still crying and neither of them have slept properly in longer than she can remember. How did she even get here? She’s eighteen years old and it’s her first month out of prison and in her tiny, mouldy, cheap apartment with her newborn son. She’s a single mother who’s never even had a parent of her own- how could she ever know what to do with her own child? Tears start to blur her vision as she blinks down at the wailing bundle tucked into her elbow._

_“I’m sorry, buddy.” She whispers, “You may never have a good mom. I might fail you every day, forever.” She swallows hard, tightening her hold on him. “But you’ll have one thing that I never did. You’ll be so loved.” She turns him upright so he’s pressed against her chest, his little head cradled in her palm. “All we’ve got is each other, Henry. But I love you, forever and always.” She seals her promise with a kiss to his downy, wispy hair, and his crying stutters to a quiet mew as she sinks into the couch. His little hands wind themselves around her neck, anchoring in her hair, and his face turns in to the crook of her neck and shoulder as they fall quietly,_ finally, _into sleep._

_  
_

_There’s a wall in the kitchen of their New York apartment covered in papers- all drawings and notes and stories of Henry’s that she’d kept over the years. There was just no space for them in the dark Boston apartment, but here the sun shines through the window so the wall glows, papers fluttering in the breeze. There’s a poem he wrote in the fourth grade with a first-place ribbon on it, a lopsided pirate ship in crayon on blue construction paper, two stick people holding hands in tall grass under a cartoonized sun- one taller, with yellow hair down to her feet, and one little one with a wide smile. Arrows point to each figure, messy printing in a heart-shaped cloud labelling them “Mommy” and “Me”._

_  
_

_She’s covering his eleven-year-old eyes and he groans in disgust as they watch a TV marathon on a Friday night. “I’m never becoming a doctor when I grow up,” he declares, and Emma groans._

_“It’s a hospital drama, kid. I promise it’s not actually like this. They make a ton of money, they help lots of people, they don’t... kiss all of their co-workers in the break room.”_

_Somewhere around the fourth episode he’s asleep, and she sighs as she pushes his hair across his forehead, her heart aching. When did he grow up so much that she couldn’t carry him back to bed anymore? But this is the first time it’s happened and she can’t bear to leave him there alone, so she pulls the blanket over both of them, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the back of the couch. When he’s sleeping, she can still see the baby she held for the first time as she was cuffed to the hospital bed and she smiled for the first time in months. She couldn’t possibly love him more._

  


These were the memories she’d always gone to on the bad days. The memories that made her heart fill with love while Henry was at a sleepover and she was so alone and crying on the couch, when the older mothers shot her withering glances as she picked Henry up for school, when she’d wake up from a dream about Henry’s father.

These were the memories that would put her back together again when she fell apart.

But now, they’re destroying her. Because this lifetime with Henry, so full of love, is a lie. Yes, they had a year together and for that she’s forever grateful- but when she’s felt a lifetime, a year is nothing at all. She thinks back to the memories, lining them up with reality and then shutting them away again because reality is “ _what do you know about family?”,_ reality is _refusing_ to look at her newborn son as she lets them take him away because she loves him _so much_ already and if she loved him any more then she’d be too _selfish_ to give him his best chance, reality is that she never even _knew_ Henry at any of these stages of his life that she remembers so well.

All the good things, all the good days, the good moments- _lies._

_  
_

_They’re driving down a country road for no particular reason, and ten year old Henry has recently discovered music. He turns up the radio to some obnoxious pop song, and it’s so loud that it vibrates through the steering wheel under her palms. But he’s bopping his head, his little mop of hair flopping and he’s singing even louder than the music._

_“Come on, Mom!” So she shakes her head and joins in, belting out something about being fearless and the wind through the open windows and their laughter brings tears to their eyes, enough that she has to pull over. **Lies.**_

_  
_

_Eight year old Henry crying when he found her sobbing with her sleeve stuffed in her mouth one night when he was supposed to be sleeping. He never did know the reason why, but they hugged for hours and they shared a whole box of tissues. **Lies.**_

_  
_

_Being woken up on a Saturday morning by a wet, four-year old kiss on the cheek.Spontaneous Friday night burger drive-throughs at 11 PM.His first steps, stumbling down the hall and into her arms, and she was so proud she could have cried. His sleeping head on her shoulder at every age he’d ever been, when he caught her trying to be the Tooth Fairy for the first time and just smirked knowingly, YouTube guitar lessons and off-tune harmonies, birthday cupcakes, “Mommy”- lies, lies, **lies.**_

  


On the bad nights she used to creep into Henry’s room to seek solace in the calm of his sleeping form. But now she looked at him, and all she could see was the little scar under his ear from when they went hiking when he was five, and he ran through brambles and bushes like he was _invincible_ and soon learned that he wasn’t. He takes up the _whole_ sofa bed now, not just a corner- he’s so grown up now, and she wasn’t really there to see any of it, and she can’t _breathe._

So she finds herself outside, in the hallway of the motel, her back pressed against the door and chest heaving. She sifts through her (too many) memories, trying to pick out the real ones, but only the lies are good, and as she slides down the door to hit the carpet with a dull _thud_ , a door opens across the hallway and a warmth settles next to her.

“Can’t sleep, either?” He whispers, and it would take _so_ much effort to force out enough air to tell him that she _was_ sleeping, dreaming sweet, lovely dreams and that was the _problem._ She nods instead.

It’s silent for a long moment, as he splays his legs out so his feet touch the wall on the other side of the hallway, and she folds her legs into her chest, hunching over with her chin on her knees.

“Swan,” he murmurs lowly, “I recently had my first real embrace in over three hundred years, and I found it strangely therapeutic.”

She doesn’t retort with a snort or a snarky remark, and _he knows what this is,_ he’s been here before- you school your features into anger, you draw your brows together and grit your teeth and refuse eye contact; you make yourself the most repulsive emotion so that everyone will walk away and you can be alone, because it’s so _simple_. You tell yourself you’re angry, you’re _furious-_ because it’s so much easier than falling apart.

So when she sits completely unreactive, just lets out a shuddering breath as her fuming gaze never leaves the floor, he’s suddenly _there._ One arm reaches up so his good hand can cradle her head, the other tightens around her waist. She can’t, she _won’t_ hold him back, but as if of its own accord, her eyes close and her tired- _so tired-_ head falls into his chest. Her ear is pressed against his heart, where she can hear it- _feel_ it- beating loudly and steadily and so very **_real._**

_  
_

_His eyes, so blue, flying open as he gasps for breath- already smiling because she just woke him from a sleeping curse, and he knew this would happen all along._

_  
_

_Leaning on the helm of his new boat as she watches Henry and Killian spar with wooden swords, both laughing so hard that their blows are shaky, and Killian has tears in his eyes._

_  
_

_His lips on her jawbone, just under her ear- the first thing she feels when she wakes up on a Saturday morning._

_  
_

These are the memories she goes to now, the ones that put her back together when she’s falling apart. Every time they fight or lie to each other or hurt each other and are too stubborn to apologize first, during every new curse or villain hellbent on ruining her happiness, these are the things she recalls to remind herself of what is good, what is _real._

_  
_

_It’s raining hard outside, with thunder and lightning cracking bright and loud outside their window. They’re lying in bed, facing each other, with little Liam tucked into his father’s body but holding his mother’s hand._

_  
_

_Henry’s reading to his brother in front of a fireplace, as she leans back into Killian’s chest and his chin rests on her shoulder. She grins softly as he peppers a kiss on the juncture of her neck and shoulder, and they exchange “I love you”s so easily, like they’ve done it a thousand times before- and they have._

  


She rubs her pregnant belly and opens her eyes, smiling at her husband as he caresses the back of her hand.

These are the dreams she lets herself indulge in now. Someday, these dreams will become memories, the memories of good things that she remembers on bad days. And these ones will be **_real._**


End file.
